Chest Pain a Leading Reason for Hospital Emergency Department Visits

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AHRQ News and Numbers

Release date: February 27, 2008

Chest pain that does not appear to be a heart attack when examined in hospital emergency departments accounted for 1.6 million visits in 23 selected States in 2005, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). About one-fifth of the cases—345,000 people—were admitted to hospitals for observation or treatment.

Non-specific chest pain was the fourth most common cause of emergency visits. The top three were:

Sprains and strains (2.4 million visits).

Bruises and other superficial injuries (2.0 million).

Abdominal pain (1.7 million).

Additional highlights of the AHRQ analysis:

Rates of emergency department visits were nearly 2 times higher among persons from the poorest communities compared with those from the wealthiest communities (about 481 per 1,000 persons versus 261 per 1,000 persons).

Five additional conditions prompted at least 1 million emergency visits:

Back problems (1.4 million).

Leg and arm open wounds (1.3 million).

Headaches, including migraines (1.2 million).

Nose and throat infections, such as sinusitis and strep throat (1.1 million).

Skin infections and urinary tract infections (1.0 million each).

Of these conditions, urinary tract infections were most likely to require hospitalization—18 percent.

Among emergency department visits that resulted in hospitalization, pneumonia topped the list of reasons for visit. Two-thirds of the 669,500 people who came to emergency rooms were admitted.

The chances of being admitted were smaller for uninsured patients (roughly 7 percent) than patients with private insurance or Medicaid (about 14 percent each) or Medicare (nearly 40 percent). Patients who were uninsured accounted for about 18 percent of hospital emergency department visits.